Convicted Burr Oak Cemetery director to start prison term

CHICAGO — A former cemetery director convicted in a money-making scheme in suburban Chicago has turned herself in to begin a prison sentence.

CHICAGO — A former cemetery director convicted in a money-making scheme in suburban Chicago has turned herself in to begin a prison sentence.

Carolyn Towns pleaded guilty in July to charges alleging she was the mastermind behind a plot with three other employees that involved digging up bodies and re-selling burial plots at Alsip's Burr Oak Cemetery.

Bodies were found stacked on top of each other and family members say they weren't able to find their loved ones, among other issues.

The 51-year-old was sentenced to 12 years in prison.

Cook County state's attorney's office spokesman Andy Conklin tells the Chicago Tribune that Towns appeared today at a suburban Chicago courthouse and surrendered.

Burr Oak is the resting place of the remains of civil rights-era lynching victim Emmett Till.